Garrett admits to making mistake in play-calling drama

After months of side-stepping the play-calling drama that has enveloped Valley Ranch since the end of last season, Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett tackled the subject head-on Tuesday, admitting for the first time publicly that Bill Callahan will handle the chore in 2013.

Garrett was caught off guard last week when owner Jerry Jones all but admitted to reporters that Callahan was the new play-caller, a title Garrett had held since 2007. Callahan confirmed the news shortly after Jones leaked it, but that didn’t stop Garrett from refusing to confirm the change at a news conference.

On Tuesday, Garrett admitted he could have done a better job announcing the change, which he said was made six months ago.

“It’s a good thing for me to clarify,” Garrett said at a news conference following the first practice of the club’s mandatory three-day minicamp. “Ever since we put the staff together in late January, we had a plan in place for how to do things…We’ve been working really since the end of January with that in mind.

“We made that decision months ago. Where we did have a little bit of miscommunication is when we were going to present that publicly…The communication publicly…didn’t happen as cleanly as I wanted it to last week, and I take full responsibility for that.”

Garrett also stressed that the play-calling duties weren’t yanked away from him by Jones, that he and the owner were on the same page in giving Callahan the reins to the offense.

“We make collective decisions,” Garrett said.

Hired by Jones as the club’s offensive coordinator before the 2007 season, Garrett became head coach after Wade Phillips was fired midway through the 2010 season. Garrett suggested that the workload was too heavy for him to maintain after two and a half years on the job, a period in which he botched several game-management decisions and failed to lead the Cowboys to the playoffs.

“There is a reason that 28-plus teams have a structure where the head coach isn’t calling the offensive and defensive signals. It’s a big job,” Garrett said. “…We felt like it was a good time to delegate the responsibilities and structure it the way we decided to structure it.

Garrett was asked to explain why he didn’t just announce the change in January. His explained that he thought the Cowboys would be at a competitive disadvantage by divulging that information too early in the offseason.

“You guys come to practice and you guys watch and you guys see where I am and you guys see where the play-callers are, so it wasn’t going to be a big secret,” Garrett said. “But to stand up here and share it prematurely, I didn’t think that was in our best interest, but it came out and it’s not a big deal and I take full responsibility for that communication not being as a clean as it should have been.”